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Create Chiptunes Using An Arcade Style Joystick Button Synthesizer

Everyone who was around to play them has fond memories of the old school arcade joystick and fire buttons. Even if you spent your time getting your ass kicked in Street Fighter 2 or Konami’s X-Men, wrenching the stick around and furiously hitting buttons is up there with the best of those rose-tinted nostalgic memories. And now those good times live on with the new controller/synthesizer Pianocade, which reincarnates the arcade game-style controller but with a slightly different purpose.

Made out of what looks like the classic I-Pac binary input buttons and switches, using Pianocade feels like you’re shooting down aliens that are jittering down the screen. But there are no space invaders here, because this is a synthesizer that makes chiptune noises so you can create sweet 8-bit and 16-bit music, based on sounds from the hardware of the Game Boy and Super Nintendo. It even has four player mode, as well as as a coin slots in case you want to start charging your friends.

Not only that but it’s open source and has a MIDI interface so you can use it as an input to control MIDI devices or output it to control the Pianocade with an iPad like they do in the video above.